UHAM031

H UNDERSTANDING HEADACHES AND M I G RAI N ES during pregnancy, especially if it is associated with aura, and is morę likely to be experienced by women who have menstrual migraines.

Tension-type headaches are commonly experienced by both men and women, of course. In fact, virtually everyone will have at least one at some point in life. Most people will have a number of tension-type headaches each year, and anything up to one a week, on average, can be normal even for a relatively healthy person. As with migraines, they are morę common in women than in men, but not dramatically so. Up to 90 per cent of women experience tension-type headaches, and up to 70 per cent of men. To many people they are a normalpartof life, andtaking aspirin or some otherpainkiller gives relief until the next occurrence. For some others, however, they can be a lifetime problem.

Cluster headaches are mainly a małe thing (about 85 per cent of them being experienced by men), which can create some confusion over diagnosis in this type of headache. Doctors can confuse this headache with many other things, so if you are a woman with a cluster headache it is less likely that your doctor will immediately spot the problem and make an accurate diagnosis. Doctors work on probabilities; they match your symptoms with what something probably is, which is why they sometimes do not think that a lump on a young woman’s breast is likely to be cancer; it is simply that it is not likely to be cancer because younger women tend not to get breast cancer, although, of course, some do.

Sexually-related headaches are, despite what you might imagine, experi-enced morę by men than by women. We have all heard of the ‘not tonight, I have a headache’ scenario, but in our sexist world we tend to think this is an excuse used by women to abate their lustful partners. In fact, most sexual headaches are caused by sex itself, and are far morę common in men than in women (men outnumbering women four to one). These headaches commonly occur at the start of sexual actmty, or at the point of orgasm. If you consider the naturę of arousal, it is not surprising that when the blood starts pumping through the veins the likelihood of a headache can increase. Don’t be afraid of telling your doctor about sexual headaches. The doctor cannot help you or give you advice if he or she does not have the whole story. No matter what you tell your doctor, even if it is very private and embarrassing for you, it will all have been heard before.

A political notę

Throughout history, women have been treated differently from men, not only in society as a whole but in specific aspects of life. Dealings with the medical